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Report, experts call for national strategy on human trafficking

TORONTO ­- Federal and provincial governments must work together in policing human traffickers and helping their victims in order to combat the lucrative crime, according to an annual international report released Monday.

The recommendation found in the U.S. Department of State's 2010 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report is no news for Canada. In fact, it has been more than three years since a motion to create a national strategy to combat human trafficking was passed by unanimous vote in the House of Commons.

The catch? There is no strategy.

"Unfortunately, the failure to have such a national action plan is causing Canada to lose face internationally, but more importantly, it¹s failing to address the problem sufficiently," said Benjamin Perrin, a University of British Columbia-based human trafficking expert.

The stark need for co-ordinated services for trafficked victims, especially in Ontario, was pointed out in a Toronto Sun investigation last year.

"Ontario continues to be a major gap," Perrin said. "I would be surprised in future years if the TIP report does not start to flag particular provinces for failing."

The report identified Canada as a source, transit and destination country for trafficked men, women and children involved in prostitution and forced labour.

On the positive side, human trafficking legislation, which was passed into law in November 2005, is finally stretching across Canada.

While Ontario's Peel Regional Police vice squad continues to lead the country in charges, British Columbia, Alberta, and Nova Scotia all saw their first human trafficking charges last year.

"I would say that the 2010 Trafficking in Persons report is a story of a country that is finally beginning to awaken to the problem of human trafficking," Perrin said.

Retired Toronto Police officer Dave Perry led a team of downtown officers in the 1980s and early 1990s in exposing a sex trafficking network from Nova Scotia to Toronto. He saw what happened without a national strategy: Task force money ran out and political will dissipated.

"If we really want to get a handle on human trafficking in Canada before it's completely out of control - if it's not already - they better start putting some resources into it," Perry said. "We're dealing with big, big money in terms of the traffickers themselves and the only way you can combat that is with a pretty healthy budget."

A "unified understanding and approach" to human trafficking is needed at the provincial and federal levels, said York Regional Police vice-Det. Thai Truong. "Right now, this does not even exist at the municipal level of policing."

Beyond the need for a national strategy is the need to collaborate with other countries, said York University professor Natalya Timoshkina, who co-authored two studies exploring human trafficking in Canada.

"The U.S. is really much farther ahead of Canada in terms of developing strategies and programs for trafficked victims," Timoshkina added. "We're still kind of doing it sporadically."